Methodology
How Tastibase ranks every dish
Tastibase gives every dish a single 0–10 scorebuilt from thousands of real customer reviews — not paid placements, not star averages. Here's exactly how that score is made.
- 01
Read every review
We analyse publicly available reviews and pick out every sentence that mentions a specific dish — only review text, never rating-only responses. A single restaurant can contribute thousands of dish mentions.
- 02
Score the sentiment per dish
A BERT AI model trained on 700,000 restaurant reviews reads each mention and scores how positive it is toward that exact dish — handling negation, sarcasm and food-specific language a keyword counter would miss.
- 03
Blend in the stars
Each dish’s quality is 85% review sentiment and 15% the restaurant’s star rating — light corroboration, so a great dish at an average venue still rises and a coasting reputation can’t carry a weak dish.
- 04
Shrink toward fair
Bayesian shrinkage pulls dishes with little evidence toward the average for that dish. One glowing (or fake) review can’t fluke its way to #1 — a dish needs consistent praise across many independent mentions.
- 05
Weight recent reviews
Only the last 3 years of reviews count, and more recent ones count slightly more. A kitchen that slipped years ago isn’t propped up by old praise; one that turned things around gets credit.
The score, in one line
Volume is confidence, not points.A dish with two reviews can't outrank one with two hundred just by averaging higher — shrinkage makes the chart reward proven, consistent quality.
What the scores mean
Common questions
Why rank dishes instead of restaurants?▾
A 4-star restaurant can make a brilliant biryani and a forgettable naan — a single star average hides that. Tastibase scores each dish on its own evidence, so you order the thing a kitchen actually nails.
Can a restaurant pay to rank higher?▾
No. Rankings cannot be bought. No restaurant pays to appear, to rank higher, or to be removed. The score is the score.
Do you show the actual reviews?▾
No. We publish aggregate scores only — a numeric score, a sentiment reading and a mention count. We never reproduce the verbatim text of a review or the name of a reviewer.
How many reviews does a dish need to be ranked?▾
A dish needs at least 4 clean mentions across a restaurant to be scored, and a city ranking only lists a dish once 2+ restaurants qualify — otherwise the evidence is too thin to be fair.
For how we source data and protect reviewer privacy, see About & data sourcing.
See the rankings →